This research will continue investigations into the health of the older population. The primary questions to be addressed are: how has the health of the older population changed over time, how does health differ among demographic socio-economic subgroups of the older population in the cross-section, and how does health change with age among a longitudinal sample of the oldest population. In addition, the project will examine the relationships among the specific diseases or conditions causing morbidity and specific functional impairments, and relate causes of morbidity to causes of mortality. Earlier years of the project have investigated health changes and differences over the 1969 through 1981 period emphasizing the role of cause specific morbidity using data from the National Health Interview Surveys. This project proposes to use NHIS data from 1982 through 1988 to make significant additions to our understanding of health among older Americans. Data available for this period differ markedly from earlier data because major changes were made in the basic questions indicating health status in the NHIS beginning in 1982. Also, significantly more detailed information on the health of the older population became available with the addition of the supplement on Aging (SOA) to the NHIS in 1984. The further collection of longitudinal data in 1986 on the subsample of those 70 and over (LSOA) provides a source for the study of changing health among individuals representative of the oldest noninstitutionalized Americans. The linking of the LSOA data with the National Death Index provides a unique opportunity to link morbidity and mortality for individual members of the populations.